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A collection of 305 songs from the early Western Zhou Dynasty (1100-771 B.C.) to the mid Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 B.C.), the Book of Songs is acknowledged to be the fountain of Chinese poetry and literature in general, and was high on the reading list of intellectuals in ancient China.
It established major rhetorical devices such as bi (simile and metaphor), fu (narration), and xing (“evocation” or “association,” that is, starting a song by evoking images quite remote from the central subject), all defining factors of traditional Chinese literature. Its capturing of the vernacular makes it an authentic portrait of different social classes during the transition from slavery to feudal society. And its persistent engagement with the human condition inspired writers of the generations following to focus on contemporary matters, and use literature to give voice to the public.
According to historical records, Confucius (551-479 B.C.) was the compiler of the Book of Songs. Now the consensus is that it is the result of a collective effort by court musicians of the Zhou Dynasty over a period of 500 years. Evidence shows that the Book of Songs that Confucius read was little different from what we enjoy today.
As Confucius said, “Poetry may serve to inspire, to reflect, to communicate and to admonish.” We may say that the Book of Songs serves chiefly to reflect the life of the laboring people, to inspire them to do good and to warnrulers against wrong doing. The great thinker was actually an ardent fan and promoter of the book. He once told his son: “You can’t speak properly without reading the Book of Songs.” After Confucianism grew into the dominant Chinese social doctrine many lyrics from the book were glossed as political allegories that interpreted, commented on, and satirized significant events in the Zhou time. For centuries thereafter, the poems remained sacred and potent vehicles of protest.
The Book of Songs comprises three sections – Feng, Ya and Song. Ya, meaning “elegant” or “refined,” contains 105 songs from the area under the direct rule of the Zhou court. Song, or “hymn,” is made up of 40 sacrificial and temple odes. And Feng, literally meaning “wind” and often interpreted as “mores,” consists of 160 folk songs from 15 vassal states along the Yellow River from what is today’s Shaanxi Province to Shandong Province. Although people of the time regarded the Ya as orthodox, the poems in the Feng are likely to be judged of greater artistic value to a modern sensibility. As Burton Watson, one of the leading translators of Chinese and Japanese poetry, put it: “We have songs of courtship and marriage, work songs, songs about hunts and songs to accompany games and dances. We read of jilted sweethearts and neglected wives, harsh officials, fickle friends, families grieving for their absent sons, and soldiers grumbling from war weariness. These are the heart of the Feng, the songs that hold the greatest appeal to the modern reader.”
Some verses of the book decry the faults and sins of the ruling class, and some describe love affairs between men and women in emotive detail. This indicates that potentates were tolerant to some extent toward opinions that ran afoul of mainstream thinking. That’s why Confucius stated: “The 300-odd poems in the Book of Songs can be summed up in one phrase – a revelation of true feelings.”
A number of poems in the book are laden with such wisdom that they have evolved into Chinese sayings or aphorisms. To give a few examples:
“For a peach thou givest to me, I have a jade for thee. Not for requital I give, but as a token of eternal love.”
This line later evolves to an idiom “tou tao bao li,” which means, “Send me a peach, I will repay with a plum,” a similar expression to “Scratch my back; I’ll scratch yours.”
“Stones from other hills may serve to polish the jade of this one,” a Chinese saying corresponding to “By other’s faults, wise men correct their own.”
When you miss someone very much, you may say: “One day apart seems as long as three years.”This is from a poem “Gathering Vines.” It reads:
To gather vines goes she,
When her I do not see,
One day seems longer than months three.
To gather reed goes she,
When her I do not see,
One day seems long as seasons three.
To gather herbs goes she,
When her I do not see,
One day seems longer than years three.
It is also interesting to note the spontaneous affection people of 2,500 years ago showed toward nature and other beings in it. Even the insects were adored and often used metaphorically to describe feminine beauty, absurd in today’s esthetics. A good example is the poem about the royal lady Zhuang Jiang.
The buxom lady’s big and tall,
A cape o’er her robe of brocade.
Her father, brothers, husband all
Are dukes or marquis of high grade.
Like lard congealed her skin is tender,
Her fingers like soft blades of reed;
Like larva white her neck is slender,
Her teeth like rows of melon-seed,
Her forehead like a dragonfly’s,
Her arched brows curved like a bow.
Ah! dark on white her speaking eyes,
Her cheeks with smiles and dimples glow.
Another poem satirizes the exorbitant taxes and levies imposed on peasants by feudal lords. It reads:
Large rat, large rat,
Eat no more millet we grow!
Three years you have grown fat;
No care for us you show.
We’ll leave you now, I swear,
For a happier land,
A happier land where
We may have a free hand.
Large rat, large rat,
Eat no more wheat we grow!
Three years you have grown fat;
No kindness to us you show.
We’ll leave you now, I swear,
For a happier state.
A happier state where
We can decide our fate.
Large rat, large rat,
Eat no more rice we grow!
Three years you have grown fat;
No rewards to our labor go.
We’ll leave you now, I swear,
For a happier plain,
A happier plain where
None will groan or complain.
The piece is widely construed to be an expression of wrath by peasants, and exhibits the emerging enlightenment and uprising against injustice. In the late Spring and Autumn Period peasants fled their vassal states, an exodus inspired by crushing taxation and ruthless suppression, leading to the eventual disintegration of slavery in China.
It established major rhetorical devices such as bi (simile and metaphor), fu (narration), and xing (“evocation” or “association,” that is, starting a song by evoking images quite remote from the central subject), all defining factors of traditional Chinese literature. Its capturing of the vernacular makes it an authentic portrait of different social classes during the transition from slavery to feudal society. And its persistent engagement with the human condition inspired writers of the generations following to focus on contemporary matters, and use literature to give voice to the public.
According to historical records, Confucius (551-479 B.C.) was the compiler of the Book of Songs. Now the consensus is that it is the result of a collective effort by court musicians of the Zhou Dynasty over a period of 500 years. Evidence shows that the Book of Songs that Confucius read was little different from what we enjoy today.
As Confucius said, “Poetry may serve to inspire, to reflect, to communicate and to admonish.” We may say that the Book of Songs serves chiefly to reflect the life of the laboring people, to inspire them to do good and to warnrulers against wrong doing. The great thinker was actually an ardent fan and promoter of the book. He once told his son: “You can’t speak properly without reading the Book of Songs.” After Confucianism grew into the dominant Chinese social doctrine many lyrics from the book were glossed as political allegories that interpreted, commented on, and satirized significant events in the Zhou time. For centuries thereafter, the poems remained sacred and potent vehicles of protest.
The Book of Songs comprises three sections – Feng, Ya and Song. Ya, meaning “elegant” or “refined,” contains 105 songs from the area under the direct rule of the Zhou court. Song, or “hymn,” is made up of 40 sacrificial and temple odes. And Feng, literally meaning “wind” and often interpreted as “mores,” consists of 160 folk songs from 15 vassal states along the Yellow River from what is today’s Shaanxi Province to Shandong Province. Although people of the time regarded the Ya as orthodox, the poems in the Feng are likely to be judged of greater artistic value to a modern sensibility. As Burton Watson, one of the leading translators of Chinese and Japanese poetry, put it: “We have songs of courtship and marriage, work songs, songs about hunts and songs to accompany games and dances. We read of jilted sweethearts and neglected wives, harsh officials, fickle friends, families grieving for their absent sons, and soldiers grumbling from war weariness. These are the heart of the Feng, the songs that hold the greatest appeal to the modern reader.”
Some verses of the book decry the faults and sins of the ruling class, and some describe love affairs between men and women in emotive detail. This indicates that potentates were tolerant to some extent toward opinions that ran afoul of mainstream thinking. That’s why Confucius stated: “The 300-odd poems in the Book of Songs can be summed up in one phrase – a revelation of true feelings.”
A number of poems in the book are laden with such wisdom that they have evolved into Chinese sayings or aphorisms. To give a few examples:
“For a peach thou givest to me, I have a jade for thee. Not for requital I give, but as a token of eternal love.”
This line later evolves to an idiom “tou tao bao li,” which means, “Send me a peach, I will repay with a plum,” a similar expression to “Scratch my back; I’ll scratch yours.”
“Stones from other hills may serve to polish the jade of this one,” a Chinese saying corresponding to “By other’s faults, wise men correct their own.”
When you miss someone very much, you may say: “One day apart seems as long as three years.”This is from a poem “Gathering Vines.” It reads:
To gather vines goes she,
When her I do not see,
One day seems longer than months three.
To gather reed goes she,
When her I do not see,
One day seems long as seasons three.
To gather herbs goes she,
When her I do not see,
One day seems longer than years three.
It is also interesting to note the spontaneous affection people of 2,500 years ago showed toward nature and other beings in it. Even the insects were adored and often used metaphorically to describe feminine beauty, absurd in today’s esthetics. A good example is the poem about the royal lady Zhuang Jiang.
The buxom lady’s big and tall,
A cape o’er her robe of brocade.
Her father, brothers, husband all
Are dukes or marquis of high grade.
Like lard congealed her skin is tender,
Her fingers like soft blades of reed;
Like larva white her neck is slender,
Her teeth like rows of melon-seed,
Her forehead like a dragonfly’s,
Her arched brows curved like a bow.
Ah! dark on white her speaking eyes,
Her cheeks with smiles and dimples glow.
Another poem satirizes the exorbitant taxes and levies imposed on peasants by feudal lords. It reads:
Large rat, large rat,
Eat no more millet we grow!
Three years you have grown fat;
No care for us you show.
We’ll leave you now, I swear,
For a happier land,
A happier land where
We may have a free hand.
Large rat, large rat,
Eat no more wheat we grow!
Three years you have grown fat;
No kindness to us you show.
We’ll leave you now, I swear,
For a happier state.
A happier state where
We can decide our fate.
Large rat, large rat,
Eat no more rice we grow!
Three years you have grown fat;
No rewards to our labor go.
We’ll leave you now, I swear,
For a happier plain,
A happier plain where
None will groan or complain.
The piece is widely construed to be an expression of wrath by peasants, and exhibits the emerging enlightenment and uprising against injustice. In the late Spring and Autumn Period peasants fled their vassal states, an exodus inspired by crushing taxation and ruthless suppression, leading to the eventual disintegration of slavery in China.